More to explore in music reading as a cross-modal process: a comment on Lee and Lei (2012)

Abstract

Lee and Lei (2012) used a pitch task and a duration task in different blocks of trials and measured event-related potentials in 12 musicians and 24 non-musicians as they read musical scores. The authors claimed to disentangle pitch and duration processing. From the perspectives of cognitive neuropsychology there is great interest in studying the processes involved in reading musical scores. However, we argue that the design used by Lee and Lei (2012) does not allow disentangling pitch and duration processing because both are expressed within the musical score. Moreover, we emphasize the importance of longitudinal studies over cross-sectional studies to pinpoint the specific influence of musical expertise on score reading.